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When "The Great Game" Is Over by Robin Webber Nearly 100 years ago, the famous British author Rudyard Kipling wrote of "The Great Game." Kipling, known for many a verse addressed to young people, was alluding to something far more complex than any child's pastime. He was speaking of the centerpiece of a great geopolitical chessboard that sat between two rival empires. The chessboard of "The Great Game" was none other than Afghanistan. In Kipling's time, Russia was in pursuit of a warm water port to the south, and Britain was determined to protect its empire on the Asian subcontinent. Afghanistan was the intersecting crunch-zone for all would-be power seekers to enter. It has been so since the days of Alexander the Great. Intrigue, political seduction and skirmishes brokered by the "big powers" through their tribal surrogates all played out like a game of chess. Isn't it incredible how some things just don't change? Unfortunately, the pawns were not funny shaped carvings of wood, ivory or plastic, but very real flesh and blood people with hopes and dreams like you and me. It's been said, "When war visits a nation, its people are never the same." Unfortunately for Afghanistan, war has never left. In 2001, we are simply witnessing the latest moves of the pawns on the "great game board" by powerful outside interests. A warlike rite of passage Such an unsettled climate has created a warlike rite of passage handed down from one generation to the next. A warrior culture has become entrenched in the minds and hearts of the everyday man. "On the ground" in Afghanistan there are no games, only the reality of day-to-day survival. Robyn Dixon, a Los Angeles Times staff writer, captures the essence of the problem in an article titled "Learning the Way of a Warrior" that appeared in the Nov. 9, 2001, edition. She tells the story of three generations of fighters from one family. Over the last two months, all of us have become acquainted with place names like Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif and Kandahar. But rather than share one more place name, I would like to convey the generational trauma and, yes, the hopes and dreams of three men named Mohammed, Abdullah and Kodratullo. Robyn Dixon begins her compelling story with the most important centerpiece of one family's home. It is a Russian Kalashnikov rifle. Abdullah Jah had lifted it years before from the corpse of a Russian soldier high in a snowy pass. The rifle had become so defective it had failed to protect its former owner. Dixon goes on to poignantly share the budding relationship between Abdullah and his newfound friend, the rifle. "He took it apart, cleaned it fastidiously, oiled it and whispered sweet words to it. 'You are my friend, and I will take care of you.' After that it never let him down." That is, yet! This treasured object hangs on the bedroom wall. It is always within reach for the family to use against their foes. "The Kalashnikov" is at the center of Afghan life. As reporter Dixon so aptly describes, "a few weeks in Afghanistan and you develop 'reflexive Kalashnikov blindness.'" You forget to be surprised by them everywhere. She paints a vivid picture, writing, "In Afghanistan's bazaars, men carry Kalashnikovs, slung over their shoulders. In the teahouses, guns lean propped against the walls like thickets of dead branches or they lie beside a man's plate as he eats. At prayer time, guns are kept within reach, placed on the ground in front of the prayer rug." But what is the end result? Dixon goes on to say, "Decades of war have militarized the society, left thousands of widows and fatherless children, and spawned thousands of boys with grudges to repay, on both sides of the country's civil war." They grow up wanting to be like the role models before them, mujahedin or "holy warriors." In villages you are more likely to see young teens toting Kalashnikovs rather than schoolbooks. Beyond what's on their shoulders, their faces are set in hard expressions of what they feel a fighter should look like. Beyond their faces is what is built up in their hearts. Along with inheriting their fathers' guns, they absorb their desire for vengeance and their fatalistic view of war. "It was fate" Abdullah's son, Kodratullo, began fighting in the 1980s at the tender age of 13 as one wave after another of oppressors came into their lives. As Dixon sums it up, "As a boy, Kodratullo had no fear of death and no appreciation of the value of a life." It is a brand of fatalism that creeps down and through one generation to the next. Asked about his older son, Amanullo, who was wounded at age 14 fighting the Soviets, Abdullah offered without any emotion the common understanding. "It was fate. We didn't think about it. It had to be that way. If he'd died, that would have been his fate too." Abdullah and his sons look upon Abdullah's father, Mohammed, with great veneration. He is not only the patriarch of their clan, but he is also the village leader. He is most likely over 80 years old now. He wasn't always blind or needing comfort from blankets to keep him warm. He has no idea exactly how old he is. He states the time of his birth in terms of "ten changes of kings and governments of our country." He grew up with inspiring legends of Afghan fighters battling the British with only primitive hunting rifles and sabers during the Third Anglo-Afghan War. In 1979, already too old to fight, it would be Mohammed who would give "the call to arms" to his sons and fellow villagers to rise up against the Soviet incursion. But his biggest battle seems to be the plight of everyday life for his people. There is a shortage of schoolteachers and books for his people. Many of his neighbors are drifting away looking for a better life. His son Abdullah will in time become leader of the village. But soon he too will be gone. Reporter Dixon informs us, "Abdullah is not sure whether any of his sons will command enough respect to lead the village, where most people do not read or write, and one doesn't bother to count how many children die of malnutrition, even though they do count the bodies of their dead warriors. Kodratullo's illiteracy worries his father, who sees it as a testament to the family's decline and a threat to its prestige in the close-knit Salang Gorge community." Abdullah is wise in recognizing his family's authority lies not in their name, but in their ability to read, write and resolve quarrels between local families before they reach for their Kalashnikovs or sabers to settle their feuds. Abdullah reflected sadly on the results of 22 years of war upon the children of his country. He lamented, "In other countries of the world, they teach their children to do something, to be engineers. In our country, we teach our children how to kill people." "I'm dreaming of the day" The incredibly wonderful news is that "The Great Game" that has not only been played out in Afghanistan for a century, but in reality in the entire world for millennia, is coming to an end. Yes, there will be more moves that will imperil the entire earth. But the returning Jesus Christ, the great hope for all humanity, is going to not only "check" human aggression, but also"checkmate" the ultimate spiritual terrorist-none other than Satan. This liberator, described in Isaiah 9:6 as the Prince of Peace, is going to liberate all the pawns of humanity stuck in the endless cycle of "The Great Game" of human stealth and craftiness. In fact, a new game plan is on the way! Where can you find this in Scripture? Notice Daniel 2:44: "And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." The ushering in of the Kingdom of God under Jesus Christ breaks all human rules. In fact "The Great Game" is thrown out and a new game plan goes into action. Did you notice the history-making news in verse 44 ? "And the kingdom shall not be left to other people"! The wonderful and loving Kingdom of God is not simply one more link in a succession of human-led, world-ruling empires, but is a spiritually liberating force that is going to lift a curtain of spiritual, emotional and cultural darkness. Who better to guide this liberating game plan than one who has been in "The Great Game" and suffered its fallout? When you consider the prophecies related to Christ's earthly experience and the images of Afghanistan today, they sound so similar. Read the words of Isaiah 53:2-3, "He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised and we did not esteem Him." Where does the life that Jesus experienced as a man leave off and where does the daily life of today's Afghans begin? In the age to come, I think they will have something to talk about, because they have spoken the same language of experience. Shakespeare put it this way: "He jests at scars, who never felt the wounds." Reporter Dixon captures the essence of one man's hope, when at the end of her article she echoes Abdullah's prayer of prayers. "I'm dreaming of the day when my daughter and some of my grandsons will get an education and become doctors. This is my only dream. I don't want them to go up to the mountain and fight. I want them to live like human beings." Abdullah's "only dream" is a reality which will come to this entire earth when he, you, I, and all humanity will have the opportunity to respond to the caring voice of Isaiah 30:21 when it states, "this is the way, walk in it." Oh yes, what a wonderful day that will be when "The Great Game" is over! wnp
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